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In a world of rapid change in which business units continue
to grow larger and the penalties of faulty judgment are more
serious than ever before, skillful management is essential.
Every enterprise must have it to survive and prosper.
Everyone knows this. But how to get skillful management—
whether to develop it from within, or acquire it from without -
remains a subtle and difficult question.
The very nature of management is an elusive concept.
Is it skill? Is it an art? Or a manner of solving problems,
or dealing with people? Can it be acquired by training and
experience? Or must you be born with the capacity for it?
The leaders of enterprises in both the public and the private
sectors may not really know just what they want in the way
of management in their own situations. Or they may not agree
among themselves on it. Even if they did, it is another
matter, and a difficult one, for them to get
the management they desire.
With Haskins & Sells, as with every other vibrant, growing
enterprise in modern industrial society, the development of
managers is of continuing concern. For a number of years the
Firm has held periodic management training seminars in the
summer, at which a selected group of partners have spent the
better part of a week in study, discussion and exchange of
ideas and experiences. The program and content have changed
somewhat through the years in response to the felt needs of
the Firm and the responses of the partners attending.
This year's management training seminar followed a format
established by the Professional Education and Development
Section in Executive Office (which has recently changed its
name to Continuing Education).
The seminar was held near New York City June 5-8,
immediately after the induction of new partners into the Firm
on June 4. Attending were 31 new partners and directors,
and 27 colleagues who had become partners within the past five
years. It was, therefore, a young group. The site was Harrison
House, a conference center on Long Island located on a
beautiful, secluded private estate where the participants
could tune out the noise and turmoil of the great
city just a few miles to the west.
As defined by EO through the Continuing Education group,
the objectives of the 1973 management seminar were:
II
Management Training Seminar to improve their
Identifying our ego states.
Stanley Silverzweig, executive
vice-president of Scientific
Resources Inc. and the SRI
Human Resources Institute,
discusses the manner in which
we can see ourselves in our
relations with others.
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